


Ghost Inhale

by popi_finnigan



Category: SKAM (Norway)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bullshit Science, F/M, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Past Sexual Abuse, SKAM Big Bang, it's only implied and from the canon you know what I'm talking about, there is a decent amount of Evak in this but the main focus is on Noora
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-11
Updated: 2019-03-11
Packaged: 2019-11-15 18:09:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18078449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/popi_finnigan/pseuds/popi_finnigan
Summary: “Everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about.” This couldn’t be any truer for the residents of the collective.Noora, after receiving a certain letter from court, buries herself in her school work and basically barricades herself in her bedroom.Eskild, after many, many failed attempts at actual dating, starts to lose his faith in love, the one with the big capital letters.Linn, after a few years worth of experience, now knows that sometimes falling asleep could be just as hard as staying awake.Then one day, Isak and Even, well, the ghost versions of them… well, more like remnants from a parallel universe, appear in Noora’s room. Our collective three can’t interact with them, they can’t even see them. Only their voices, random bits and pieces of their conversations travel into the flat from an alternate reality (basically the canon reality). Still, they might be exactly what these three need...This is basically an AU where Isak doesn't live in the collective but, along with Even, sort of haunts the place.Written for the SKAM Big Bang 2019.





	Ghost Inhale

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so Even and Isak are not dead in the story, I just want to emphasize this.

NOORA I.

There is the constant buzzing of her phone, some pop song blasting through the wall that connects her room and Eskild’s, the echo of glasses clinging, the scent of the rain from outside, the ghost of heavy, alcohol-filled breathing on her neck, a dog barking right under her window, the memory of Niko's hand on her thigh, unwelcome, the letter in her drawer, the panic slowly creeping its way back into her head, the—  
  
Noora has so much to do. Her room is almost tidy now, but she is absolutely swamped in school work. She is so, so busy that a trip to the bathroom or to the kitchen for a new cup of tea feels like an adventure. She simultaneously writes an essay for her psychology class, finishes up her Spanish homework and researches an upcoming article. She hears her phone buzz once in a while, but she promptly ignores it. It’s seven o’clock when Eskild manages to drag her out of her room to have dinner with him and Linn (thankfully, the shared meal isn’t a scam to make Noora cook for all of them, they have ordered pizza), and Noora checks her messages. 

_Vilde_  
_(11.12) You absolutely must come to that party on Friday!_  
_I won’t accept ‘no’ for an answer this time! The girls can attest to this._  
_(15.08) Please, please, please._

_Eva_  
_(11.15) Vilde asked me to text you that, I quote, “I do not accept ‘no’ for an answer”???_

_Chris_  
_(11.15) FYI: Vilde doesn’t accept ‘no’ for an answer._  
_She should chill, but she is not wrong. No party is a party without Noora._  
_Except the one we were at yesterday and the one last week. But those were shit… so the point stands!!_

_Sana  
(11.35) I’m NOT texting you about the whole Vilde thing. But it reminded me… do you want to have a coffee with me tomorrow? Relax a bit? _  
_(11.45) I seriously need it._

_William_  
_(12.10) Foxhole can kiss my ass. Wanna grab lunch until I’m ready to go back to this book? Or the other one. So many fucking great law books for his class to choose from…_  
_(Missed call)_  
_(Missed call)_  
_(12.44) Rain-check on the lunch, then. You’re really busy with homework, hm? Text me if you need anything. <3_  
_(15.51) Finished the assignment. Fun times._  
_Wanna hang in the evening? Or tomorrow? We could go to Langøyene if the weather is still nice._  
_(16.10) ?_  
_(18.01) Eskild’s just asked me what kind of pizza he should order for you…?_  
_(Missed call)_  
_(18.05) Margherita has been the choice. I really have high hopes for this particular pizza, but if it sucks as much as the one we had near the opera house, you can sue me. Well, probably. I don’t know enough about lawsuits to tell._

Noora laughs into a pizza slice, which, thankfully does not suck at all. The messages (and typing away her answers to them), Eskild’s tirade about the hot delivery guy and even watching Linn picking the mushrooms from her pizza and piling them up on one side of her plate are enough to distract Noora from the school stress and the—, so they are enough to distract her from that and ease the soreness that has eaten itself into her shoulders. Maybe the reason why these things work as excellent distraction is because they are not huge, nor time-consuming. Going out to Langøyene definitely takes away at least half a day of studying, a coffee with Sana could easily turn into an hours long conversation, and a party comes with dressing up, doing her make-up, a pregame and then the inevitable tiredness in the next morning, so no, a party is also out of the question. But this. Sitting with Eskild and Linn at home in her old sweatpants, and chatting with William and the girls on her phone is nice.  
  
It _is_.

***

NOORA II.

The first time Noora hears them is an otherwise peaceful Thursday evening.  
  
Having barricaded herself into her room, Noora is sitting on the bed, laptop set in her lap, hair still damp from the shower she took earlier. She is tired, that’s for sure, she also needs to finish an article she is absolutely no interest in writing, so her mind is clearly looking for a distraction; none of which explains though why she is suddenly hallucinating a whole, mind you, invisible conversation into her bedroom.  
  
_THE VOICE: “We could smoke it now.”_  
  
Whatever that was, it comes so suddenly and from so close that Noora slams her laptop shut in a start. She feels her legs tremble under the blanket she has thrown onto herself earlier.  
  
_OKAY ANOTHER VOICE: “We also could be violently murdered tomorrow. You know when the others find out that we smoked the whole stash without them.”_  
  
_ONE VOICE: “Like they could best me.”_  
  
_ANOTHER VOICE: “Yeah? What about me, they could just easily beat me?”_  
  
_ONE VOICE: “Nah. You’re old. That means more time to practice. Plus, there is your jacket. You could use it to kill a man with how heavy that thing is. You’re aware that it’s supposed to be for wearing, not for storage, right?”_  
  
_ANOTHER VOICE: “It’s still two against three.”_  
  
_ONE VOICE: “We’d still win.”_  
  
_ANOTHER VOICE: “Loving the confidence, but then that just would be humiliating for them, wouldn’t it? Think about it. That humiliation would soon turn into resentment, and you see, those kinds of things can ruin entire friendships. You’d really risk it for_ weed _?”_  
  
_ONE VOICE: “You’re too dramatic.”_  
  
_ANOTHER VOICE: “Nah. I’ve just seen a lot of movies.”_  
  
_ONE VOICE: “Fine. How about we smoke some of it now?”_  
  
So there are definitely two voices. They belong, as much as Noora can tell, to two young guys (or if they aren’t young, they have those forever-young voices that radio hosts possess, but balance of probability and all that). She doesn’t recognize either of them and she is not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad. Like, what’s more normal, making up two imaginary people having a conversation (and having that about smoking pot out of all things) or two people whom she knows doing the same? None of it sounds any less insane.  
  
She probably needs to postpone writing that godforsaken article.  
  
_ONE VOICE: “Come on, Even. I know you want to.”_  
  
She may also need some dinner. Veggies, vitamins, lots of it.  
  
_EVEN-WAS-THAT-IT: “What happened exactly to your ‘you’re not supposed to smoke’ mentality?”_  
  
Sleep. That’s clearly a need, too.  
  
_NOT-EVEN: “Nothing happened to it. You are not. But you are capable of making your own decisions. And if you were to decide to smoke this— some of this with me now, you’d be still encouraged to change your mind at any point. You could just watch me smoke or something.”_  
  
Getting out of her room is another necessity.  
  
_EVEN-WAS-THAT-IT: “Uh-huh. As much fun as that sounds, I’m confiscating this until tomorrow.”_  
  
Getting out right about this second.

***

NOORA III.

It’s not less freaky the second time it happens, and Noora doesn’t feel herself more prepared for it, either.  
  
This time, it’s a Saturday morning.  
  
This time, there isn’t a laptop on her but there is a cup of mint tea in her hand which she promptly spills all over her freshly washed, blue-striped, white shirt.  
  
This time, she has finished all the articles she was forced to write and all the ones she wanted to write. (One of those categories went a lot smoother than the other. And well, because one category included a piece of writing about the worrying number of advices on ‘how to starve yourself’ on the internet, while the other was made out of reports on the school’s revue groups.)  
  
This time, she is neither tired, nor bored.  
  
All in all, this time her hallucination lacks any somewhat explanation.  
  
_NOT-EVEN: “I did NOT owe them any.”_  
  
_EVEN-WAS-THAT-IT: “So you’ve mentioned, yeah.”_  
  
_NOT-EVEN: “Why would I even owe them? I haven’t even smoked since— I don’t even remember since when! That’s how long ago it happened!”_  
  
_EVEN-WAS-THAT IT: “You’ve already mentioned that, too, baby.”_  
  
_NOT-EVEN: “Like I provide weed for them, I share it with them willingly…”_  
  
_EVEN-WAS-THAT-IT: “Meh…”_  
  
_NOT-EVEN: “Then they have the nerve to demand more than their fair share and— I cannot believe the audacity of it!”_  
  
_EVEN-WAS-THAT-IT: “Audacity… yeah, we’ve definitely been there, too. I remember being impressed by that word. Like that’s a big one if you’re hangover. Scratch that, that’s always big one for you before 10 in the morning.”_  
  
There is a sound of a soft crash here (maybe a pillow or a piece of clothing thrown in somebody’s face), followed by a laugh. Even-was-that-it has a nice laugh, concludes Noora, then, she freezes.  
  
Even-was-that-it has a nice laugh?! That guy doesn’t even exist—  
  
—right?  
  
_EVEN-WAS-THAT-IT: “Is this the appropriate time to let you know that I saved some of it for you?”_  
  
_NOT-EVEN: “What? When?”_  
  
_EVEN-WAS-THAT-IT: “Yesterday. Before we left for the party.”_  
  
_NOT-EVEN: “Are you serious right now?”_  
  
_EVEN-WAS-THAT-IT: “No, wait. The appropriate time would’ve been before you threw that dirty t-shirt at my face. Now it’s too late.”_  
  
Noora feels smug about her suspicion about the t-shirt being correct for an entire moment, then she freezes yet again. All of this happens in her head; if she thinks something happened in a certain way, of course it happened that way—  
  
—right?  
  
_NOT-EVEN: “Even!”_  
  
_DEFINITELY-EVEN: “Fine, fine. It’s in the top drawer.”_  
  
_NOT-EVEN: “What?! This has been here the whole time?!”_  
  
_DEFINIELY-EVEN: “Mhm. What? You thought I had that one in my jacket, too?”_  
  
_NOT-EVEN: “Honestly? It’d have been my top guess.”_  
  
_DEFINITELY-EVEN: “I’d have told you earlier, but it was hard to cut in your monologue this morning. You just went on and on and— what are you doing?”_  
  
_NOT-EVEN: “What do you think I’m doing? Saying thank you.”_  
  
_DEFINIELY-EVEN: “Don’t you want to smoke it?”_  
  
_NOT-EVEN: “Not right now, no. I’m still hangover. And now shh, stop distracting me!”_  
  
It takes a full minute for Noora to finally catch up on what’s happening. Then sadly another until she manages to scramble her phone and a clean shirt, and flees from her own room.  
  
There is no way she is hallucinating all of _that_.

***

NOORA IV.

The first stage is always the denial, so naturally Noora doesn’t tell anybody. As long as she doesn’t tell, she can pretend it’s not happening at all. That is, until another chat about weed or ‘thanking for the hidden weed’ incident occurs, of course. Fortunately, since that traumatizing Saturday morning, Noora’s room has not been inhabited by anyone but her (or well, on one blissful, study and make-out sessions filled afternoon by William, too).  
  
However, as they say, nothing good can last forever, and soon enough (almost a week later) Even and Not-Even start up a brand new conversation. And if that weren’t enough, one minute into their discussion (which mainly consists of Even’s rather detailed explanation of the cinematography of some movie) Eskild marches into the room with an intrigued ‘What’s going on?!’, shattering Noora’s pretense of normalcy (at least what’s left of it) once and for all.  
  
This time Even and the other guy aren’t even particularly loud and thankfully there isn’t any sexcapade involved, either. Right now, they are only mildly disagreeing on the merits of a movie (Noora still can’t figure out what movie it is), yet, Eskild has somehow heard them, proving that he indeed has an excellent hearing (as he claims all too often), but more importantly, that this (whatever this may be) is not only happening in Noora’s head. Which at this point is, quite frankly, a relief.  
  
Eskild’s face is a showcase of mischief and honest curiosity as he leans against the doorframe. “You’re watching something?”  
  
Noora straightens up on her bed and points at her laptop (lying turned off on her desk), then at her phone (the screen is pitch-black). Finally, she sighs.  
  
“No…”  
  
Her voice sounds smaller than she’d like to.  
  
Eskild looks a bit more confused now but far from alert. He steps further into the room and slouches on the end of Noora’s bed. (In the background Even and Not-Even are still chatting about that movie, now ranking the main actors on their hotness. Both Noora and Eskild are only half-listening to them, the latter with a nod of approval.)  
  
“Is it a radio play?” Eskild asks, eyeing Noora’s phone not far from him. “I’d rather see a sex scene than just listen to it, but I can’t say I don’t see the appeal.”  
  
“A sex scene, Eskild?”  
  
“Yeah, last time I heard these voices, they were clearly banging,” he explains. “Not the voices, but… you understand. On Saturday, was it? Right before you started doing laundry out of sexual frustration.”  
  
“I wasn’t doing it out of sexual frustration! I spilled tea on my— you know what, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that it’s not a radio play,” Noora unlocks her phone and pointedly waves it in front of Eskild, “or from a hidden iPad from my closet or I don’t know, any other guesses you’d have. I. Am. Not. Doing. This.”  
  
This definitely falters Eskild’s confidence and stunts him for a long moment.  
  
_EVEN: “There is no way he is over fifty.”_  
  
_NOT-EVEN: “I’m telling you he is.”_  
  
_EVEN: “I’m telling you you’re wrong.”_  
  
_NOT-EVEN: “Looking it up now. Aaaaand what did I say? Fifty-three.”_  
  
_EVEN: “How is that even possible?”_  
  
_NOT-EVEN: “It’s really just math. He was born fifty-three years ago and aging a year every—“_  
  
_EVEN: “Oh my god.”_  
  
“You are not doing this?” Eskild repeats.  
  
“No.”  
  
_NOT-EVEN: “You know you should’ve learned it by now. There is no one who is more often right than me.”_  
  
_EVEN: “Mhm. I should’ve learned that, huh?”_  
  
“You’re absolutely sure?”  
  
Noora lets out an exasperated sigh. “Yes, Eskild, I’m sure.”  
  
_EVEN: “How about when you said you were going to get a three on your biology test? Then you got a six. It literally happened yesterday.”_  
  
_NOT-EVEN: “I was being modest!”_  
  
_EVEN: “Yeah, that doesn’t sound like you.”_  
  
_NOT-EVEN: “Fishing for compliments then.”_  
  
_EVEN: “Okay, fine. That actually sounds like you.”_  
  
“So you weren’t watching porn? Not even listening to it?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“Oh, well, way to break my heart.”  
  
This derails Noora’s train of thought for a moment.  
  
“Seriously? Why is it so important to you that I watch porn?”  
  
Eskild shrugs. “It indicates that all you do here isn’t boring studying? Or it could be like a shared interest between us? A whole new range of topics we can discuss? Exchanging tips on what to watch and what not, that sort of things. It could even foreshadow a talk when you ask for advice for your actual sex life with my boy, William? There are lots of options here.”  
  
Noora has at least a dozen of protests against _those options_ , but she bites her tongue before she would voice any. She needs to stay on topic. So before Eskild could raise any more comments, she starts rehashing the odd occurrences of the last two weeks. It takes almost half an hour to tell everything; she doesn’t gloss over the early fears of her hallucinating the whole thing, and includes a five-minute rant about writing articles on revue groups (this detour is rather incidental). Eskild doesn’t interrupt her with questions, only shushes her a few times to listen into the conversation the two invisible occupants of the room are having. By now Even and Not-Even have abandoned the topic of the movie altogether (whatever movie that was), and they are in the loud process of googling various actors’ ages. In one memorable moment Even and Eskild gasp in chorus as Not-Even announces that Paul Rudd is forty-eight.  
  
When Noora finishes talking, however, she expects Eskild to finally freak out. He never does. She looks up (most of her monologue was directed to her own lap) and finds the other playing with the fringes of her blanket, seemingly deep in thought.  
  
“So,” Eskild says after a while, “even ghosts smoke weed.”  
  
Noora raises her eyebrows.  
  
“Good to know,” he adds.  
  
“Because…?” she prompts skeptically and it’s so much easier to engage in this conversation that in any other they could have in this moment.  
  
“For the sake of my spiritual peace of mind.” As he says it, Eskild gestures in a rather theatrical manner.  
  
“You don’t have such, Eskild. You don’t believe in any god, or in fate, and certainly, you don’t believe in spirits.”  
  
“Shh! Oh my god. Bring their wrath on us, why don’t you,” he says alarmed, although he doesn’t need to worry. Even and Not-Even don’t show any signs that suddenly they have started hearing them. They are still discussing actors who don’t look their ages. “And I’ll let you know I might believe in them,” Eskild continues, “from now on.”  
  
Noora chews on her lower lip. “So, you really think they are ghosts?”  
  
“What else could they be?”  
  
Anything really, Noora thinks, but ‘ghost’ seems to be a good equivalent name for that. So she shrugs.  
  
Ghosts, then.

***

NOORA V.

It’s a few days (and two other Even and Not-Even “appearances”) later when Eskild proposes that they should tell Linn. It goes as dramatically as they expect; she merely nods in acknowledgement and says ‘okay’. And when Eskild asks if she has noticed anything or heard the two guys herself, at Linn’s answer Noora must suppress a laugh.  
  
“I heard. I thought it was you.”  
  
“You don’t recognize my voice?!” Eskild shouts then.  
  
The exclamation doesn’t distress Linn in the slightest. “I guess not,” she shrugs and migrates back into her room.

***

NOORA VI.

As it turns out, living in a haunted apartment for the unforeseeable future requires some ground rules.  
  
First, they agree on sharing Noora’s room. Eskild volunteers to spend three nights in it, Linn and Noora two and two respectively. They also agree to welcome each other in their room if Even and Not-Even were to decide on doing something other than sleeping. (Naturally this only happened once, on a night when Noora was supposed to have the room.)  
  
It’s also a mutual agreement that until they figure out at least a pattern the ghosts appear in, they won’t invite anyone over. Eskild argues a bit, but finally he relents and promises to go to his boyfriend’s – he refers to whatever-his-name as ‘boyfriend’ with a grimace – instead of inviting him to their haunted home. (He must realize that this is the only rational choice here.)  
  
And most importantly, they agree that neither of them will move out of the apartment. It’s a rather determined declaration on Eskild’s part but one that meets with a pair of equally fierce nods.

***

NOORA VII.

They never make it a rule not to tell anyone about the ghosts, though. It’s implied but it’s not quite a rule, and that loophole allows Noora to let it slip one day. That day is not a particularly stressful one, nothing overly bizarre happened in the apartment (the last time she heard Even and Not-Even, whose name she still hasn’t caught, they were in the middle of a rather mundane debate over what to have for dinner), she had a good school day and now a relaxing evening with her boyfriend in his apartment, William reading a book, Noora finishing up her homework. And maybe the normalcy of all of this is the very thing that makes her want to say it.  
  
So she does. “There are ghosts living in my bedroom.”  
  
She doesn’t know what kind of reaction she wants until she gets it.  
  
“Fucking creepy,” William puts it with surprising simplicity.  
  
And well, okay, to be fair, before that, he spares a long glance at Noora detecting whether she is joking or not, follows it with a shake of his head and a huff, and only then he comments on the creepiness of the situation. Still, the lack of freak-out somehow makes Noora feel lighter. Because creepy is infinitely better than impossible.  
  
Because creepy, you can handle, you can solve, people deal with creepy things on a daily basis.  
  
“I know!” she says at last and can’t help the little laugh that escapes her, before she starts explaining it from the start.

***

LINN I.

Sometimes nothing seems easier than to sleep, while everything else feels impossible. Those days Linn spends among blankets, mostly in her room, but sometimes, when Eskild really insists or Noora offers a bowl of hot, home-made soup in exchange, on the living room couch.  
  
And there are days, when there is tiredness (Linn can’t even recall the last time she didn’t feel utterly exhausted), and willingness and opportunity to rest but sleep never comes. This is one is these days, and the night is a slow one. One would say every night is slow if you are wide awake, but Linn knows better. By now, she has become an expert on making up categories and sub-categories and telling the difference between those nights when you can trick yourself into fantasies, when the blackness behind your closed eyelids can be painted with alternative lives (life as a monk, life as a theatre critic, life as a character in a video game, life as a contender of Paradise Hotel, life as anything but a lump on a bed), and those nights when there is only the quiet ticking of the alarm clock her mom bought for her, the occasional barks coming from an apartment in the adjacent building, and her thoughts, so many thoughts. These thoughts that arrive at night are rarely coherent, they are more like general worries disguising themselves as thoughts, so there isn’t even a way for Linn to ease them. They are just there and they are so, _so incredibly_ tiring. This is one of the nights that are full of them.  
  
Linn pulls the blanket right up to her chin, forces her eyes not to focus on the blackness but on happy daydreams (like having the energy to go with Noora to the supermarket the next day) and lies motionless in Noora’s bed (which, due to their agreement, is hers for this night and the next), but she knows it’s a waste of time. Nothing will help.  
  
Then she hears them – soft voices travelling through time and space and the realm of possibility.  
  
_NOT-ESKILD1: “That’s such a creepy thought, though!”_  
  
_NOT-ESKILD2: “No, it isn’t! Well, it might be, depending on what are you thinking about. But good to know where your head is at.”_  
  
_NOT-ESKILD1: “Cch.”_  
  
_NOT-ESKILD2: “No, seriously. What do you think about on the tram on your way home, for example?”_  
  
_NOT-ESKILD1: "Stuff. I don’t know. Homework. What has happened that day. What I’ll have for dinner. What I’m reading on my phone…”_  
  
_NOT-ESKILD2: “Me?”_  
  
_NOT-ESKILD1: “Obviously you, too.”_  
  
_NOT-ESKILD2: “See. I knew you have dirty thoughts on trams.”_  
  
_NOT-ESKILD1: “Well, you’re usually involved in the dinner thought process, too.”_  
  
_NOT-ESKILD2: “You aren’t denying the dirty thoughts, though. Wow.”_  
  
_NOT-ESKILD1: “How about what I’m thinking of now?”_  
  
_NOT-ESKILD2: “Nah. Okay, okay, I’ll stop being difficult. My point is that you haven’t ever had a thought where just after having it, you’ve thought to yourself that thank god, no one can read minds, then proceeded to think about what you would think of if mind-reading were an actual thing.”_  
  
_NOT-ESKILD1: “Yeah, okay, I did that, when I was a kid. But you know, scientifically… it’s very unlikely that mind-reading would work like how you imagine it, or how it is in the movies and stuff, like reading a fucking book or something, because your mind doesn’t work like that.”_  
  
_NOT-ESKILD2: “Okay. But otherwise it’s possible? Mind-reading?”_  
  
_NOT-ESKILD1: “Well, by machines in a controlled environment, yes. Scientists were able to differentiate between one’s mental activities while they were in an MRI sort of thing. But outside of that? It’s all experiments and studies, I think. Like they did that thing where they surgically put a recording electrode or some shit against one’s brain and they could draw patterns from the data sent by them. So they were able to determine when the person thought of the same type of thing. For example, when they thought of dates and quantities, even in general terms like yesterday and stuff.”_  
  
_NOT-ESKILD1: “So with electrodes? But not without them?”_  
  
_NOT-ESKILD2: "I mean… I’m not up-to-date with the researches in the area or anything, but I don’t think so.”_  
  
_NOT-ESKILD1: “So without having a whole conspiracy theory where we say that all of us were kidnapped by the government at birth and had been given a chip in our brain or whatnot, our conclusion is that we shouldn’t think that someone on the tram might be able to read our minds?”_  
  
_NOT-ESKILD2: “Well, no. But if mind-reading were an ability you had, in a sense, that you were born with it, would you tell the world about it? Exactly. So secretly, beyond scientific knowledge, it could be a thing.”_  
  
Linn loses track of the barking and clock-ticking while she listens to them.

__

***

NOORA VIII.

Noora doesn’t think it’s healthy to be excited about two invisible guys’ relationship (who may or may not exist or have existed at all) and she says so when on her way from the kitchen to the living room, she spots Eskild sitting on her bed with a dreamy expression on his face.  
  
“Oh, you don’t understand,” Eskild waves her off instantly.  
  
Noora warily steps inside but stays close to the door, hand placed on the doorknob, fully ready to escape if it turns out that Even and Not-Even are having sex again. (Although, in that case, she would probably shout at Eskild first and usher him out with her.) But that’s not what they are doing. Their voices, coming from somewhere around the window, are quieter than at other times, the tone of their current conversation intimate in an almost heart-warming way, and for the first time Noora feels guilty to listen into it.  
  
_NOT-EVEN: “This must be the hundredth drawing you’re making about me.”_  
  
_EVEN: “I’ll stop. I know it’s obsessive, but my brain sometimes doesn’t and—“_  
  
_NOT-EVEN: “No, baby, no. That wasn’t my point at all. It’s just that I don’t understand how you could still find something new to look at in me. Like it’s just my face, you know. To me, it looks the same every time I look into the mirror. But it doesn’t when I look at your pictures.”_  
  
Noora doesn’t even register that she is walking towards the bed until she is already sitting on it, her shoulder brushing Eskild’s.  
  
“Okay,” she allows, “that was pretty cute.”  
  
“This is just like that scene in Titanic,” Eskild says. “Except that they are not naked. I don’t think they are, at least. Nah, sitting on the cold windowsill would be uncomfortable. They won’t crush into an iceberg, either. But apart from those, it’s similar. Romantic. Don’t you think? Oh, you know what? I’ll call them Dicaprio and Green Rose. Because of the weed,” he explains with a wink when Noora stares at him in confusion.  
  
Noora can’t help but correct him, “Dicaprio’s name was Jack in that movie.”  
  
Eskild waves her off again. “Potato, potato.”

***

ESKILD I.

Eskild loves love. Love on top and all that. But lately… he doesn’t really know. He has started to refer to Espen as his _boyfriend_ , and if that isn’t the most depressing thought in the world! Steady hookups used to be a long way from boyfriends. But there also used to be the hope, tightening Eskild’s heart in a delightful way once in a while, that love would soon find him. Lately, where that hope was, there is nothing. He would catch himself scoff ( _scoff!_ ) at romantic comedies and roll his eyes seeing a couple making out on the tram. Which isn’t him. Cynicism cannot become him.  
  
That’s why when he felt that tightening (not the sexual kind but the heart one) again, he needed to sit down. That happened to be done on Noora’s bed, but what can you do.  
  
It has been minutes since Noora found him in her room and then decided to join him. Now they listen to their ghosts together.  
  
_DICAPRIO: “So you really don’t think it’s obsessive?”_  
  
_GREEN ROSE: “No.”_  
  
_DICAPRIO: “I love you, you know that?”_  
  
_GREEN ROSE: “I might’ve had a hunch about it, yes. But again, I’m the best detective in the world, reading clues like it’s nothing. Master of noticing subtle signs and all that.”_  
  
_DICAPRIO: “Mhm.”_  
  
_GREEN ROSE: “Yeah. But should you be less observant than me, the best observant ever to live, I’ll just come right out and say it: I love you, too, baby.”_  
  
Eskild’s heart flutters and flutters, and he feels himself crack a smile that is finally genuine not just amused, one that is as far from cynicism as one can get.

***

NOORA IX.

They have a chart now. It’s fairly nice; it includes all the information they have gathered in the last few weeks about their ghosts, it’s organized in bullet points and written with red or blue markers depending on how sure they are in said information.  
  
This is what Eskild holds theatrically in the air right now as he stands in the middle of the living room and asks for a flat meeting. Or rather announces it.  
  
“We need an action plan,” he says once Noora and Linn have settled down on the couch. Noora has made all three of them tea, so while she is slightly annoyed that once again she was pulled from her studies (they’re having a math test the next day), the warmth of the cup helps tucking away her annoyance and makes her focus on the _right here, right then_.  
  
“Okay, so first point of order is that we shouldn’t involve anyone or tell anyone about this. Agreed?”  
  
Noora squirms in her seat. “I’ve sort of already told William.”  
  
“Ah. He is a respective member of this household anyway. That doesn’t count. What did he say though?”  
  
“’Creepy.’”  
  
“That it is,” Eskild agrees. “Hm, great input. Moving on. Next point: theories. What is this, what are we thinking, what inklings do your sweet minds have? My personal opinion is that the universe demands a gay romance from the flat this way.”  
  
“A— what?” Noora asks in confusion. “It didn’t get that at least three times a week when Marco— or Nando used to be over?”  
  
“Espen. Their names don’t always end with an –o, you know. But no, I said _romance_. For which Espen was simply a poor candidate. He sucked at talking, dancing, knowing any Beyonce lyrics… Ironically enough, the only thing he was good at was sucking my—“  
  
“ _Thank you_ , Eskild.”  
  
“They could be remnants of a parallel universe,” Linn interrupts them suddenly in a dreamy voice.  
  
The declaration is met by the bewilderment of two sets of eyes.  
  
“And what do you know about parallel universes, Linn?” Eskild asks in a skeptical voice, after seemingly getting over his initial shock.  
  
Linn blows into her cup. Noora’s tea is too hot to be drunk as well, so she understands.  
  
“I wrote a paper on them last semester,” Linn finally says nonchalantly.  
  
“A paper? What kind of paper? Where would you— why would you write a paper on parallel universes?”  
  
“A thesis. At UiO. Because I study astrophysics there.”  
  
“You study astrophysics at UiO?” Eskild echoes. “Since when?”  
  
“Last year,” Linn shrugs.  
  
“I feel like we’re getting a bit off-track here,” Noora interjects.  
  
“Oh, because you knew that Linn is an astrophysicist!”  
  
Noora, as a matter of fact, didn’t know, but there is no way she will admit to that. Partially, because she doesn’t want to give Eskild the satisfaction, and partially, because, well, it’s kind of sad that she didn’t know. She dares a glance in Linn’s direction, and although Linn doesn’t seem bothered by the fact that her own flatmate ( _flatmates_ , really) didn’t know what she was studying at the university or that she was studying at all, guilt still settles into Noora’s stomach. She decides right there and then to pay more attention to Linn in the future.  
  
But for now, she says only this, “That’s a good idea, Linn.” In return, Linn nods and with a satisfied look she starts sipping her tea. “But uhm… could you maybe elaborate? ‘Remnants of a parallel universe?’ What does that entail exactly?”  
  
Another nod. “You know about the multiverse theory, don’t you?”  
  
At the same time that Noora says ‘No’, Eskild says ‘Obviously’. Noora looks at him with narrowed eyes. Eskild holds her stare for a few seconds, then, “Fine. No idea. What’s that theory, Linn?”  
  
“For your sake,” Linn addresses Eskild with a blank expression, “simply put: multiple universes exist, and these universes operate in the same time but parallel to each other.”  
  
“Simply put,” Eskild gasps and points an accusing finger towards Linn. “You, you…”  
  
Noora is quick to interrupt. “But in theory, these universes don’t affect each other, do they?”  
  
“That’s what most scientists believe, yes,” Linn confirms. “But there are other theories, too. Some say that while normally the parallel universes exist simultaneously but entirely separately from each other, sometimes they can also overlap and interact with each other.”  
  
Eskild furrows his brow. “What does this have to do with our situation, though?”  
  
“That these overlaps are like glitches in a computer game. They aren’t supposed to happen. It’s like when your character can’t move even though they aren’t any visible obstacles in their way, or when you move to a different location but you can still hear the score of your last location.”  
  
“I don’t really play—“  
  
Noora cuts in, “Don’t you understand, Eskild? The score still plays even though you are in a different place! That’s exactly what’s happening here, right? Even and Not-Even do exist, they do have these conversations, just not here, in this universe.”  
  
“In another, yes,” Linn nods and she looks intensely at her flatmates. “For some reason a connection flared up between our universe and theirs, and that’s why we can suddenly hear them. It’s a glitch.”  
  
Eskild slumps down onto the couch. “Okay, Linn,” he says with a tired sigh. ”You’ve convinced me.”  
  
Noora pats Eskild’s shoulders, before she turns to Linn again.  
  
“And how do we fix the glitch?”  
  
Linn puts down her tea; this one seems like a more difficult question.  
  
“Well, in a game… You would have to get around it somehow, approach the new location in a different route, re-upload the game and try it in a new way. Here, I’m not sure how that translates. We’d have to tilt our reality or the ghosts’ reality. I don’t know how that’s—”  
  
“What if we find them?” Eskild suddenly asks.  
  
“How do you mean?”  
  
Eskild, gaining back his energy and control over the situation, jumps up and holds their chart up again.  
  
“You guys have just said that these conversations happen, just not here. What if we make them happen here? Our ghosts should exist in our universe, too, shouldn’t they?”  
  
“Not necessarily,” Linn shakes her head, but seemingly she is not rejecting Eskild’s idea in its entirety. ”This could be a universe where one of their parents had a girl or they didn’t get together to even have any babies. But, it could work. If they exist here, it could work.”  
  
“So what?” Noora asks. “We just randomly start looking for two guys we know next to nothing about?”  
  
“That’s not true,” Eskild argues. “We know an awful lot about them.”  
  
“Okay, what’s their name? _Real_ name.”  
  
“Even.”  
  
“Full name,” Noora adds impatiently.  
  
“Fine,” Eskild allows. “We don’t know his last name. But we know other things! We know that he likes movies and that he draws. We also know that they are still in school and that they live in Oslo, because those other versions of them live in this apartment. That’s more than nothing, my dear Noora.”  
  
“Please tell me that you don’t expect us to conduct raids in the high schools of Oslo in order to find them! Because I can just see the three of us roaming the high school corridors and politely ask after some Even and his boyfriend, and when people would ask why we are looking for them, without missing a beat, we’d just say ‘Oh, you know, we just need them to help with our ghost problem’. It’d be so lovely!”  
  
“Yeah, okay, tone down the sarcasm. I didn’t suggest this. But you know, you wouldn’t die if you got out more, and by ‘going out’ I mean preferably attend some parties organized by students of a school that’s not Nissen.” Eskild stops, and looks at Noora accusingly. More accusingly than this far. “They do not attend Nissen, do they?”  
  
Noora shrugs. “Probably not. Vilde would be all over a gay couple, so I’d know.”  
  
“They aren’t necessarily together here, though,” Linn jumps in.  
  
“Well, no rumors about gay guys, either.”  
  
“Really? No gay guys at Nissen?” Eskild shakes his head. “How disappointing.”  
  
“No out gay guys, at least,” Noora says, then she glances from the overly excited Eskild to Linn, who herself looks more energized than Noora has seen her in a long time. So, although Noora very well knows that in a few days she will curse herself for it, she offers this, “But I could peek around and see if I can find any Even attending the school.”  
  
“I’ll check the UiO’s system,” Linn joins in. “Maybe one of them here has already finished high school.”  
  
Eskild steps around their table, and with an enthusiastic laugh pulls both Noora and Linn into his arms.  
  
“Yes!” he cheers. “Action plan is in motion! I’ll also sacrifice some more exciting activities and bring a few of my dates to the movies. Even may work there as a part-time job.”  
  
“That’s a very big ‘may’.”  
  
“Because the other parts of this plan are bulletproof. Let me have this, Noora. I wanna be a part of it.”  
  
Noora clears her throat. “Sorry, yes, do that.”  
  
And just like that, they really have a plan. Not bulletproof, not one that is likely to lead anywhere, but still, it’s a plan.

***

NOORA X.

The first few weeks of their search are fruitless. There is only two Evens attending Nissen and both of them are first-years. Nevertheless, Noora checks, but they sound nothing like their ghost Even. There are infinitely more Evens at UiO, too many, to be precise, and that’s exactly the problem. The other is that Linn hardly goes to her classes, but this something none of them holds against her. And then there are Eskild’s movie dates. Eskild did argue that they weren’t entirely in vain, which made Noora’s interest peak, and then Eskild showed her the hickeys he acquired at said movie dates, which made Noora shoo him away.  
  
It’s almost a month after Noora first heard Even and Not-Even that finally something happens.  
  
Noora is having lunch with her friends, not in the cafeteria, because someone smashed a box of milk to the wall and now the whole place stinks, but in the corridor. Vilde, Eva and Chris are sitting on the steps, while Noora and Sana in the windowsill. They are writing a test in Norwegian in the next period, so all of them are hunched over their notes while they also try to eat, and whatever they say about women and multitasking, the process is not entirely a success. Ten minutes ago Chris spilled yoghurt on her sweater, Eva has already dropped her fork three times, and with hers Noora missed her mouth on multiple occasions, hissing in pain when the metal poked into her chin. Still, they don’t give up. They are hungry, and the test is an important one. That’s why it’s even more annoying when they hear the guys, Jonas and his squad, approaching. They’re extremely loud and obnoxious (Magnus is in the middle of some obscene anecdote and the other three are howling at it), but Noora tries to concentrate on her notes anyway. She reads the same paragraph over and over, and then recites it in her head, _the poet was born then and there, yes, and he dies then and there, yes, and then Magnus had to knock over even more books not be suspicious, and that’s not important, what it is that the poet reflected to his childhood home in the poem of— with the title of—_  
  
Noora snaps her head up, ready to tell off the four guys who, to Noora’s surprise, are now standing right next to them, and sharing their stories not only with each other but with Vilde, Chris and Eva, too, but then she hears it.  
  
“You know, Magnus, your stories always become utter bullshits at the end. Like until the halftime mark, you’re solid, what you’re saying is at least half believable, then something just snaps in you, and suddenly you’re fucking in the school library during daytime or hooking up with girls with cat tongues.”  
  
And maybe because her head is full of her Norwegian notes, or maybe it’s because she isn’t actually part of their conversation, so the voice comes without any context, she finally knows what she supposes she should have known all along: that Not-Even is _Isak_. Her classmate, her best friend’s ex-boyfriend’s best friend. Isak, whose voice she has heard dozens and dozens of times.  
  
Isak is the one whose parallel self haunts her room.

***

ESKILD II.

Eskild would not necessarily call himself a coffee guy. Even when others offer to meet up at a café, he suggests someplace different. Yet, after feeling like he has exhausted all online dating options aimed at people who are looking for more than a fuck (because it turns out even those apps are filled with people who are only after a fuck), he finds himself sitting at a café. It’s a result of elimination, really. It’s a place where you conventionally meet new people, more intimate than the tram or the bus, less loud and demanding of sex than a bar or a club. And okay, it’s not like one has to fuck in a bar or a club, but the option is clearly there, and well, let’s just say, Eskild knows himself.  
  
Surprisingly, this particular café is almost nice. It looks, sounds and smells like any other café in Oslo, but the coffee tastes actually good and doesn’t even cost a fortune, and the staff… The staff is nice. _Incredibly_ nice.  
  
At the moment, Eskild is chatting up one of the two baristas. His name is Pablo, he has dark brown eyes, a dreamy voice, and as much as Eskild can tell from the other side of the counter, really nice abs, and has Eskild already mentioned how nice the place is? Pablo seems almost too perfect to be real. His only fault so far is that his name ends with an –o, but even Eskild is not proud enough that he would give up on this guy just to avoid Noora’s teasing. So he flirts and talks, and tries to look irresistible whenever Pablo has to help out his co-worker. There are not many customers, so, thankfully, this rarely happens and Eskild can have Pablo all to himself.  
  
Pablo knows Beyoncé (well, okay, not personally, that really would have been too much, but her songs), they have also discussed other artists (no mismatch, hard rock fanaticism or hate for Disney musicals, there), and life mottos, and favorite drinks, favorite bars, favorite gay bars (Eskild is rather proud of the way he managed to work that one into their conservation, and fine, clearly they have been flirting for the past hour, a little bit of confirmation never hurts), and now they are on the topic of movies, specifically of Titanic, which Eskild, not totally unrelated to his DiCaprio and Green Rose, has watched an unhealthy amount of times recently. So far, they have agreed that Jack indeed is a babe, and that the saddest part is when the band decides to just keep on playing.  
  
“That part was real,” someone, other than Pablo, says, but that’s not the reason why Eskild jerks his head so fast up that even Pablo looks at him in concern. No, the reason is the voice itself which continues talking, while Eskild continues to gaping. “The part with the band. The one with the old couple, too, they were based on some rich owners of a department store in New York. And it always makes me wonder whether it’s worth making up stories when reality offers the most powerful bits.”  
  
Eskild finally manages to snap out of his stupor, and looks up and down the guy in front of him. He is handsome, not a Pablo, but still, he has smiling eyes and a mysterious smile, but most importantly, wears a name tag that confirms what Eskild already knows: he is undoubtedly Even.

***

NOORA XI.

Noora is pacing around the apartment when Eskild gets home.  
  
Her first words to him are these, “I know who the other ghost is, the not Even one.”  
  
His first words to her are these, “I've met Even.”  
  
Because Eskild is too pumped to actually sit through Noora’s story without telling her his, he starts. Noora only allows herself a few moments of surprise over the fact that Eskild went into a café to pick up guys, then she is able to concentrate on the important bits, which do not include Eskild’s two minutes long monologue about how hard it was to convince Paolo or Pablo that he was not coming onto Even and still very much liked to take Paolo or Pablo on a date, which, by the way, will be on Saturday (another unnecessary information in Noora’s eyes). The important bits are these.  
  
Even truly exists in this universe, too, and he works at a café. He is also a student at UiO and majors in media studies. He does not date Isak (duh), nor anyone else—  
  
“Wait,” Noora interrupts him. “Did you really ask him that? God, Eskild.”  
  
“Of course, I didn’t directly ask him. I could’ve never dug myself out of a hole that deep in front of Pablo.” Noora raises her eyebrows in question. “Pablo mentioned it. _After_ I convinced him that I’m not interested in Even in the slightest. He told me that Even broke up with his girlfriend like a month ago, or two months ago… and Pablo and some of the other employees decided to throw Even a pity party. A literal pity party, letting him mourn his relationship, or well, drown it in alcohol and music, then, helping him move on, or well, move on for a night. Case in point, he had a girlfriend, and now he is single.”  
  
“The way it sounds, he is also not over that girlfriend.”  
  
“He’ll be once he meets his Rose,” Eskild argues. “What’s his name again?”  
  
“Isak.”  
  
“Aw, Isak and Even! They sound cute!”  
  
“Sure they do. But before you start planning their wedding, can I tell my thing?”  
  
Eskild nods and finally settles down. She even sits on the couch next to Noora instead of replacing her in the pacing around act, which he was doing in the last twenty minutes. Still, Noora needs to double-check.  
  
“Without interruption, right?”  
  
“Right, right. Let’s hear about our other Prince Charming! Is he grumpy? He sounds grumpy. Nice, but in a grumpy sort of way. Like you, actually.”  
  
“I’m not— it doesn’t matter. And I don’t really know him…”  
  
“Of course not.”  
  
The end of the sentence (“... because otherwise you’d have already told me about him.”) hangs in the air, unsaid, but it’s there.  
  
“Without interruption, remember!”  
  
“Fine, fine.”  
  
Noora takes a deep breath, and resists the urge to throw her legs into Eskild’s lap, essentially keeping him from jumping up dramatically at her next words.  
  
“So his name is Isak, and he is in my year.”  
  
Eskild opens his mouth, but Noora raises her eyebrows and waits it out until Eskild changes his mind.  
  
“We haven’t really talked much, but he is the best friend of Jonas… Eva’s ex. He is definitely not out. As far as I know, last year he was madly in love with Eva.”  
  
“Can I talk now?” When Noora nods, Eskild continues, “You’re sure he was in love with Eva? Not that this means he can’t fall for Even, but if he isn’t over her…”  
  
And well, Noora is not sure.  
  
“Nothing happened. Between Eva and Isak. But Eva and Jonas had this big mess of a relationship last year. It was already a mess to start with, but Isak definitely worked against them, and when Eva confronted him, he basically admitted that he did it because he had feelings for Eva.”  
  
“And since then?”  
  
“Since then nothing. I mean Jonas is his best friend, so it’s understandable why he wouldn’t try anything. And also Eva is clearly not interested in him, so there is that.”  
  
“Hm, okay. Maybe he’s got over her.”  
  
“Probably,” Noora agrees. “The problem isn’t Eva, though. It’s the fact that even if Isak likes boys, I don’t think he’d feel comfortable knowing that we know that, let alone having us tossing a guy at him.”  
  
“A really handsome guy.”  
  
“If you say so.”  
  
“His soulmate.”  
  
“From another universe.”  
  
“Oh, hush. Don’t spoil my happiness!”  
  
“I wasn’t going to,” Noora says and when she is met with the doubtful expression on Eskild’s face, she has to add, “I wasn’t trying to. All I’m saying is that there are other factors here to consider.”  
  
Eskild creeps closer to Noora, right until their sides flush together, and then he puts his arm around her shoulder.  
  
“We’ll consider them, I promise,” he says. “But for now… can we be just happy that we’ve found them, Noora?” He gives her shoulders a squeeze. “We’ve found them.”  
  
Noora relaxes against Eskild, because he is right. It seemed unlikely, almost impossible, and still.  
  
“We’ve found them,” she repeats with a small smile.

***

NOORA XII.

“Absolutely not. We can’t _just tell them_ , Eskild.”  
  
This is the third time within a week that Noora has to make this clear. Once she had to when Eskild, albeit jokingly, suggested it in their very first discussion about how they should go on about the Even and Isak situation. The second time Eskild seemed much more serious, and his suggestion (“We could just tell them the truth.”) almost sounded like he meant it. And now this. This time the idea is born out of desperation, which is okay, fair, because they truly don’t have many options here.  
  
Noora and Eskild are sitting around the kitchen table and doing some rather unsuccessful brainstorming, while Linn is doing a much quieter one in her room. They know this because occasionally she migrates into the kitchen for a new cup of tea or for a bag of chips, and shares some of her thoughts with them, none of them is exactly usable, but not like Noora or Eskild had even one suggestion that led anywhere, so it’s fine. Linn also just shrugs when the other two collectively reject her proposals, and goes back to her room, leaving Noora and Eskild to stare at each other for another fifteen minutes, until the whole thing starts over.  
  
Noora is sipping her tea, while Eskild eyes the dirty plates in the dishwasher that he promised to wash half an hour ago, and he was quite adamant about it, so Noora lets him. They can faintly hear the sound effects of some computer game, that’s coming from Linn’s room, and bits and pieces of an intimate chat between Isak and Even, the source of it is naturally Noora’s room.  
  
And yeah, speaking of Isak and Even, the situation is far from ideal. After a little bit more digging, they have found out that the two of them really don’t know each other, and honestly, they do not seem particularly ready to, well, not just to meet but to fall in love with each other. Isak is in the closet, and there isn’t anything that indicates that he would like to come out of it anytime soon and start dating a boy. And Even, well, he, and this is the only good news they had in the past week, is an out and proud pansexual, but unfortunately, not a “ready to mingle” one at that.  
  
So it’s understandable that it has come to this idea: just tell them that they are soulmates in another universe and be done with it. But—  
  
“We don’t want to freak them out, do we? And in Isak’s case, also, you know—“  
  
“Force him to say something he isn’t ready to say?” Eskild sighs. “Yeah, I know. It’s just— listen to them for a minute here, Noora,” he says, and with that he grabs Noora’s wrist and pulls her towards her room.  
  
_ISAK: “I’m not saying you have to go back to therapy. It’s just— an idea, I guess, which you can consider. But look, at the end of the day, you know yourself and know what you’re feeling better than I do. So start with something simple, think about whether talking to her helps or not. You’re the only one to know that. I’m not there, I can’t know. And you’re also the only one who can tell whether talking to someone else, another therapist, maybe, would help or not, whether it’s worth a try, or a few, or not. I don’t want to— What I’m trying to say is that you’re capable of making your own decisions, Even.”_  
  
_EVEN: “Did you just— isn’t this the same thing you said about the weed?”_  
  
_ISAK: “Well, I meant it. It’s applicable here, too. Basically everywhere else, as well.”_  
  
_EVEN: “Basically?”_  
  
_ISAK: “Yeah, not when we choose movies to watch together. You clearly need some guidance in that area, if we want to avoid that I fall sleep halfway through the movie’s runtime.”_  
  
_EVEN: “For the last time, The Artist is a masterpiece. It won an Oscar, too, you know.”_  
  
_ISAK: “It doesn’t mean it’s good.”_  
  
_EVEN: “Besides I love it when you fall asleep on me. It’s adorable.”_  
  
“See?” Eskild points in the air.  
  
“I do— you know, what I mean.”  
  
“And you want to deprive them of this?”  
  
“I don’t. Of course, I don’t, Eskild. I just don’t have any usable ideas how to get them here.”  
  
“How about what Isak has just said?”  
  
“Buying tickets for them to see a boring movie so Isak can fall asleep on Even’s shoulders?”  
  
Eskild snaps her fingers at Noora. “I like the way you think.” Noora rewards this with an eyeroll. “Your cheery, never sarcastic personality, too, darling. Anyway, no, I meant that we should start with something simple. How about just getting them to the same place? No preambles, talks about parallel universes and soulmates, not even about potential boyfriends, we just let them meet and see what happens. Maybe they’ll fall in love instantly, maybe— okay, they might not, but they could be friends or I don’t know. They could be good for each other even if they aren’t being like _this_. It’s worth a try, isn’t it?”  
  
“It’s worth a try,” Noora confirms, because of course, it is.

__

***

NOORA XIII.

They decide to arrange the meeting, or well, _enable_ the meeting (because they don’t want to meddle too much), at Even’s so-called pity party. So, to not be suspicious, they not only invite Isak to the party, but themselves and their friends, too. It’s quite an easy affair. Eskild brings it up off-handedly to Pablo, who jumps at the idea of having more people there to hook Even up with. Noora invites the girls and suggests inviting the boys, too. And from there, it’s a piece of cake.  
  
“So tomorrow,” Eskild says, giving Noora quite a fright.  
  
She is standing in front of her wardrobe, trying to choose the outfit most suitable for the potential life-changing meeting of two people, who she doesn’t really know but cares about...? It’s not easy.  
  
“Yes, the party is tomorrow,” Noora confirms while tosses an old pink dress out of her way.  
  
“Way to undersell it, dear.” Noora is positively certain, that behind her back, Eskild rolls his eyes at her. “Tomorrow is the day when two soulmates finally meet, when universes collide, it’ll be historical, no matter the outcome.”  
  
Noora suppresses a smile. “Way to be overdramatic, _dear_ ,” she says, although Eskild words ring a lot similar to her own thoughts.  
  
“Your dark blue shirt is cuter,” Eskild comments, and Noora looks down on the black shirt she is currently holding, then on the rack at the dark blue one. Eskild might be right. “But fine. Then how about this? This may be our last day with our ‘ghosts’. That’s a bit historical isn’t it? An end of an era and all that.”  
  
Yes. Noora hangs the dark blue shirt and a black pair of slacks in the front of the rack, then, she plops down on her bed. Eskild joins her.  
  
“I’m gonna miss them,” Noora finally admits.  
  
Eskild hugs her, and Noora feels his smile as he gives her a kiss on her forehead.  
  
Then Eskild whispers in her hair, “I know that according to our schedule tonight I supposed to have the room, but. You want to sleep here maybe?”  
  
Noora lifts her head and meets Eskild’s eyes.  
  
“What if we make it into a party? You could sleep here, and Linn, too.”  
  
“’Make it into a party’? If there were words I didn’t see coming out of your mouth, these were those words,” he laughs, then hugs Noora again. And well, let’s just say, Noora is not quite prepared for how tight that second hug is.

***

LINN II.

Sometimes nothing seems easier than to sleep, while everything else feels impossible. And there are days, when there is tiredness, and willingness and opportunity to rest but sleep never comes. And there are even days, albeit they are so, so rare, when being awake at night is not a struggle.  
  
This particular night is a slow one, it’s 1 a.m., and then, an infinity later, it’s 1.18 a.m. One would say that every night is like that, slow, if you are wide awake, but Linn knows better. There are nights where there is too much on her mind, and to find a trick to fall asleep feels like those mechanical puzzles she never managed to solve as a kid, or those game plays that have a glitch in their system and one can’t actually proceed without a cheat code. During those nights there is nothing in the stillness of her room that can distract her, nothing to give her a clue, a cheat code, a way out of the maze that her head is.  
  
This night is, however, not one of these nights. This one is slow, that much is true, yet there is nothing painful about it. Far from it. Linn can hear Eskild’s soft snoring behind her and feel Noora’s back brushing against hers. Linn snuggles closer to Eskild to give Noora more room, and smiles when in turn Eskild, still deeply in sleep, gives her more room. Noora’s bed is not too big, but they manage, and Linn is happy that Noora suggested that they all sleep here, in case the ghosts appear. However, it’s not until 3 a.m., when everyone but Linn is asleep, that their conversation starts. Just like always, it’s like tuning into a radio program in the middle of it. There is no context, nothing.  
  
_ISAK: “Is she nice?”_  
  
_EVEN: “Well, yeah, but it’s more like she is a ‘no bullshit’ type of person. I appreciate that. But at the same time she lets me finish what I want to say, and doesn’t try to guess my feelings after my first sentence.”_  
  
_ISAK: “That’s cool. I’m glad.”_  
  
_EVEN: “Yeah. Thanks for suggesting trying a new therapist. I think I’m going back next week.”_  
  
_ISAK: “Yeah?”_  
  
_EVEN: “I think so, yeah.”_  
  
_ISAK: “That’s great, baby. But uhm, you’re sure you aren’t doing it for my sake?”_  
  
_EVEN: “So sure. Stop worrying.”_  
  
This night is a wonderful one. Spent wide awake, but among people who care about Linn, and maybe that’s all the difference. She is not naïve, though, she knows that even though lying between Noora and Eskild, and listening to Isak and Even feels like a solution, it isn’t. But maybe a small part of it, like the first few moves on that mechanical puzzle, the first letters of that freaking cheat code, half of a map to the maze. It’s a start. And maybe, just maybe, Linn will follow Isak’s suggestion, as well, because okay, it turns out sharing is nice.  
  
_ISAK: “Hey, what if Nina— that was your old therapist’s name, right? Or was it actually ‘hag’?”_  
  
_EVEN: “Hilarious. It was Nina, why?”_  
  
_ISAK: “Just— what if Nina is one of those mind readers we’ve talked about? She is just really, really bad at it.”_  
  
_EVEN: “Oh, no. Can you imagine?”_

***

ESKILD III.

The scene is almost identical to the one they had in Noora’s room yesterday. Except, Eskild has so much more clothes, and it’s so much more important that he looks good at the party. He is in the frustrating and quite loud process of throwing button ups, see-through shirts and jeans on his bed, when Noora steps into his room with a tentative but all too knowing _“What’s up?_ ”.  
  
“This always looks like this,” Eskild explains.  
  
Noora walks closer and examines the piles of clothes (it’s actually two piles) on Eskild’s bed.  
  
“No, usually it’s quieter and… more confident, I guess. What’s with the two piles? Which one is still in the running?”  
  
“Oh, please, none. This one is my ‘no’ pile and that one is the ‘hell no’. I might get rid of the clothes in the ‘hell no’ pile altogether.”  
  
Noora considers this for a moment. “So no ‘yes’ pile? Or not even a ‘maybe’ pile?”  
  
“Of course not. They all look hideous.”  
  
“Sure,” Noora says and eyes Eskild. In Eskild’s opinion, it’s really unnerving when she does this. Usually these intense ‘Noora looks’ are followed by slow, carefully chosen words. And yes, here they are. “Pablo is special, isn’t he?”  
  
Eskild’s heart flutters even at the mention of Pablo, and he doesn’t even need to answer Noora, because in this moment she understands him perfectly.

***

NOORA XIV.

There is a letter in the top drawer of Noora’s commode. It’s written in fancy words, the judge who signed it has a fancy name, there is a fancy stamp on it, it’s made of a— no, okay, the paper and the envelope are rather non-sensational. She got it weeks ago, signed the proof of receipt, opened it, read it, marked the date of the hearing on her phone's calendar, didn’t mention it to a single soul, not even William. Especially not to William.  
  
Now, Noora stares at her drawer. Then, she stares at the phone in her hand, both are shaking when she hits _send_.

_Noora_  
_(12.10) Can we talk tonight? At the party or after?_

_William_  
_(12.11) Are you okay though?_

_Noora_  
_(12.11) Yes!_

_William_  
_(12.11) Good. Sure then._  
_(12.18) Are WE okay?_

Noora smiles at the message, then quickly types her answer.

_Noora_  
_(12.19) Yes!!_  
_See you tonight. <3_

***

NOORA XV.

There is the thump of the music, some pop song that a few meters away Eskild clearly recognizes because he is mouthing the lyrics into Pablo’s mouth, there is the smell of adrenaline, the goosebumps following the path of William’s hand on Noora’s skin, the excited racing of Noora’s heart, the cheering of the girls while Magnus and Jonas are having some ridiculous drinking competition, the sound of William’s laugh in Noora’s ear, the softness of his hair between Noora’s fingers.  
  
In this moment, Noora doesn’t have to do anything, expect dance, dance, dance. Ironically enough, the next song tells her exactly just that.  
  
Of course, they all, well, Noora, Eskild and occasionally William, keep an eye on Even and Isak, who, much to their delight, keep an eye on each other. As much as Noora can tell, nothing has happened, they have not talked or interacted in any way, but Noora is sure that it will happen before the end of the night. Eventually, Noora loses track of the two of them, though (partially on purpose, because it feels creepy to spy on them), and it’s not until much, much later, that she finds them. It happens entirely incidentally. Noora is on her way out of the toilet back to the dance floor, when she hears them. They must be talking right outside of the club, under the bathroom’s windows.  
  
_ISAK: “Sure you’re fine with smoking the whole thing with me?”_  
  
_EVEN: “Why wouldn’t I be fine?”_  
  
_ISAK: “I don’t fucking know. Some people like to share their stash only with their friends.”_  
  
_EVEN: “’Those, who smoke together, will be friends forever.’ Never heard the saying?”_  
  
_ISAK: “No. Who said that?”_  
  
_EVEN: “Shakespeare.”_  
  
_ISAK: “It’s dark, so you can’t see it, but I’m rolling my eyes so hard right now.”_  
  
_EVEN: “Oh, I can tell.”_  
  
_ISAK: “Piss off. Okay, but there are others, those hamster types, who hold onto their weed and wait for a special occasion to smoke it. You aren’t one of those?”_  
  
_EVEN: “I very much am. So. Do we smoke or not?”_  
  
_ISAK: “Uhm… sure.”_  
  
_EVEN: “Have you ever tried to ghost inhale, Isak?”_  
  
Noora hardly resists the urge to have a little peek at them, but she does, and with the smile on her face which she does not fail to send in Eskild’s direction either, returns to William.

***

NOORA XVI.

It’s not the first time, since their crazy ghost adventures started, that silence welcomes Noora when she gets home, in the sense that there is no trace of Even and Isak, but it is the first time that it truly feels like silence. There are no barks coming from the adjacent buildings, no fridge makes that annoying humming sound, no rain is tapping on the window, there is no music, no noise… and for the first time in weeks, the night is also without memories of a party at William's apartment from a long time ago.  
  
It’s quiet.


End file.
